Asklemmy

43963 readers

1106 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy 🔍

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

Open-ended question
Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

Lemmyverse: community search
sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
!lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago

MODERATORS

180

So, on pronouns. (lemmy.ml)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by shapis@lemmy.ml to c/asklemmy@lemmy.ml

166 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I have a few questions on how to best behave to be as welcoming and inclusive as possible without sounding bad. I hope you guys don't hate me.

I'm just a straight male. Are my pronouns he/him? Is that how I should tell people? Do you actually tell them as you meet them ? Do I have to wait for a certain social cue ?

How about online. Should I tell people or have it on my personal profile somewhere?

And about respecting other people's pronouns. How do i figure them out ? Is it a big faux pas if I don't before I know them ? Is it a faux pas if I refer to someone I just met and I assumed to be male as he/him?

I've never seen anyone referring to anyone irl by non conventional pronouns. Is it an actual thing or is it currently being pushed to make the world a more inclusive place?

I'd love some help with all of this.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Chobbes@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (1 children)

You mean to tell me that they don’t use English pronouns in other languages? I’m gonna need a source on that one, buddy!

Although, more seriously, I am curious if other languages lacking common usage of gender neutral pronouns are doing similar things to they/them. I know mandarin also has a bit of a weird situation where the third person pronoun when spoken is gender neutral, but the characters are gendered (他/她/它 are all PRONOUNced “ta”). I don’t know too much about why this is, but it sounds like it was foreign influence that led to the distinction in the written form?

[–] jpeps@lemmy.world 3 points 1 year ago

I know at least for French it's been more controversial as there was no direct they/them equivalent. Instead new language has started to be used, though it's not standard. I find it interesting as they/them is often defended (beyond the fact that it's been in use in English for a long long time) as being a language tool in English that's readily available and a far more palatable alternative to neo-pronouns. However in French (and other languages) I wonder if an invented gender neutral equivalent is culturally perceived as being no different.